Sandra Busby on the Welsh Contact Centre Awards 2014

The Welsh Contact Centre Forum's Managing Director reflects on the Awards, the industry, and what the future holds for Wales.

What a night!

With over 700 attendees, the glamorous Wales Millennium Centre and a major celebrity star all part of the proceedings, it’s no small wonder that the Welsh Contact Centre Awards last Friday was one to remember.

I’d like to give my personal thanks to all who entered and attended the Awards, and extend my congratulations to all our winners. Each and every entrant, finalist and winner has a role to play in ensuring the often astonishing growth and success of the contact centre industry in Wales. As the industry’s leading networking platform we have a unique perspective on just how hard staff at all levels work, and it’s something that we rightly celebrate each year.

The sheer amount that needs to be sorted, organised, ordered and arranged for the Awards seems to grow exponentially each year – but it’s still one step behind the sheer level of enthusiasm for the event felt both by us here at the WCCF and by those attending. It’s also no match for the skills of our truly first-class organisers, Jayne and Mark Davies of Bannau Creative. Bannau have organised the Welsh Contact Centre Awards for three years, and they have never failed to impress.

That’s certainly true of the host they found for us - Jonathan Ross. Anyone heard of him?

I can only describe his hosting as out of this world. He filled the evening with his trademark cheeky swagger, but judging by the deluge of photos and messages that came to us via our twitter account, it was his genuine love of meeting and greeting everyone around him that made the biggest impression. It’s fair to say he truly got into the spirIt of the evening.

As well as our skilled event organisers and dazzling host, I’d also like to thank my team and Board members for their ongoing support, and the hard work they put in on a daily basis to ensure that all we do supports the industry as much as possible.

But the best bit?

I think, though, that most exciting element of the Awards this year wasn’t the actual awards themselves. It wasn’t the venue, the menu, or even the Host. It was the knowledge that this industry of genuine, hardworking people will find even more ways to surprise and delight both us and their customers over 2015. Come 2016, we’ll be on stage again, looking back over the year and marvelling at what has been achieved.

We’re thinking big about what’s next for the industry in Wales – a recent whitepaper we drafted with Deighton Consultants, and supported by the Welsh Government, outlines how Wales can demonstrate our country’s customer service excellence to the world. Our industry’s continued growth, especially as the global economy continues to recover, is partly due to the ability to absorb new technologies and ideas while staying true to the basic principle of providing reliable customer service.

But more than that, it is, as ever, about the people. We all know that the customer service industry in Wales offers world-class customer service, and for such a small nation that’s no mean feat. It’s largely down to the innate qualities found in Wales – we’re people people, and it’s this that drives both our work and our desire to celebrate it. We like to do well, and we like to see others do well, too.

So come on, Wales. Between now and then, let’s work hard, smash our targets and show the world just why it is that our small country can compete globally.